Sunday, February 11, 2007

Neither Snow (Billy Collins)

When all of a sudden the city air filled with snow,the distinguishable flakesblowing sideways,looked like krillfleeing the maw of an advancing whale.

At least they looked that way to mefrom the taxi window,and since I happened to be sittingthat fading Sunday afternoonin the very center of the universe,who was in a better positionto say what looked like what,which thing resembled some other?

Yes, it was a run of white planktonborne down the Avenue of the Americasin the stream of the wind,phosphorescent against the weighty buildings.

Which made the taxi itself,yellow and slow-moving,a kind of undersea creature,I thought as I wiped the fog from the glass,

and me one of its protruding eyes,an eye on a stemswiveling this way and thatmonitoring one side of its world,observing tons of watertons of peoplecolored signs and lightsand now a wildly blowing race of snow.